I understand that there are 1400 different brands of over-the-counter medication that contain acetaminophen. That's what destroyed my father's liver.
Was this discovered by an autopsy?
We Need More Autopsies, to Help Save the Living
41–50 of 61 posts
Re: We Need More Autopsies, to Help Save the Living
#42"In the United States, we usually don’t autopsy people unless the cause of death is mysterious or foul play is suspected." In any case, health insurance doesn't cover autopsy. Turns out its classified as postmortem to deny insurance coverage. there was an hour long special on NPR sometime in 2014.
Well, it is postmortem by definition. I don't get the argument in favor of it being treated otherwise.
Re: We Need More Autopsies, to Help Save the Living
#43I'm donating my body to science. I don't see much use in having a death ceremony involving my body. Will probably be much cheaper for my family too.
Your family will likely want ceremonies to help them grieve and deal with your loss. Maybe just bury an empty casket.
Re: We Need More Autopsies, to Help Save the Living
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
You may not remember, but part of the cryo signup process involves declaring a religious objection to autopsy.[1] (No state has an irreligious objection to autopsy, but they don't ask for specifics.) In California, a court order is required to override it. I don't think that has ever happened. A medical examiner would only go to the courts if you were patient zero in some sort of outbreak. 1. http://www.alcor.org/Lib…
Using a religious objection for this seems appropriate. The belief that you can live forever by if your body is frozen after death is more or less the same as the belief that you can live forever if your body is intact and you worshipped the right deity.
I don't want to stray too far from the original topic, but your equivocation is unwarranted. Unlike religions, cryonics actually has evidence behind it. Modern cryoprotectants allow for accurate preservation of brain nanostructure. Axons and even synaptic vesicles are kept intact. In fact, Alcor's cryopreservation protocols have already been used successfully on small mammal organs, such as rabbit kidneys.[1] Kidneys are harder to preserve than brains, as they have less vasculature to allow saturation with cryoprotectants.
Does all this mean that pumping a brain full of cryoprotectants and cooling it to -196°C will preserve its memories? Possibly, but we don't know. Cryobiologists and cryonics researchers readily admit this, and they're working to find the answer.[2] If that sort of thinking is religious, then call me a zealot.
1. http://www.21cm.com/pdfs/12FahyORG5-3%5B1%5D.pdf
2. https://vimeo.com/22766034 Starting around 33:05, Dr. Brian Wowk talks about memory preservation. He's quite frank about the fact that there's not proof, just a good likelihood that current methods preserve memory and personality. Then he outlines some next steps for research.
Re: We Need More Autopsies, to Help Save the Living
#45former pathology resident here- disagree. The main reason we do fewer autopsies is because of better diagnostics while the patient is alive. The numbers they provide for significant changes in diagnosis based on autopsy seem pretty high (based only on my own experience). Even the examples they pick for the article are kind of lame- it wasn't St. louis encephalitis, it was west nile! Um...so? Do we have a treatment no…
> The main reason we do fewer autopsies is because of better diagnostics while the patient is alive. The article claims that "About 15 to 30 percent of the time, the diagnoses at time of death are wrong" .
Maybe, I haven't read the study, but there is a huge selective pressure here. That is, these days you tend to order autopsies only when there was something mysterious about the death.
Re: We Need More Autopsies, to Help Save the Living
#46former pathology resident here- disagree. The main reason we do fewer autopsies is because of better diagnostics while the patient is alive. The numbers they provide for significant changes in diagnosis based on autopsy seem pretty high (based only on my own experience). Even the examples they pick for the article are kind of lame- it wasn't St. louis encephalitis, it was west nile! Um...so? Do we have a treatment no…
>> former pathology resident here The implication being that you did not complete your training. I'm curious -- if you don't mind the derailment -- why not?
Completed it. Never practiced as an attending. Went into the computers instead
Re: We Need More Autopsies, to Help Save the Living
#47I'm donating my body to science. I don't see much use in having a death ceremony involving my body. Will probably be much cheaper for my family too.
Your family will likely want ceremonies to help them grieve and deal with your loss. Maybe just bury an empty casket.
Exactly. Funerals are for the living, not the dead.
Re: We Need More Autopsies, to Help Save the Living
#48I find this thought provoking. When my father-in-law died, the coroner declined to do an autopsy as he was over 70. Essentially, for anyone old enough, an autopsy is considered unnecessary as death isn't all that unlikely. In some respects, that is a sensible position. However, my father-in-law's death was slightly mysterious (in the medical sense; no suspicion of foul play) as he was extremely healthy and HIS father…
The coroner may have decided it was better for the family's closure to let it go. Particularly if a physician had already signed the death certificate.
No, the decision was based entirely on his age (and standard department policy); the coroner was not subtle about it. He died at home.
Re: We Need More Autopsies, to Help Save the Living
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Using a religious objection for this seems appropriate. The belief that you can live forever by if your body is frozen after death is more or less the same as the belief that you can live forever if your body is intact and you worshipped the right deity.
I don't want to stray too far from the original topic, but your equivocation is unwarranted. Unlike religions, cryonics actually has evidence behind it. Modern cryoprotectants allow for accurate preservation of brain nanostructure. Axons and even synaptic vesicles are kept intact. In fact, Alcor's cryopreservation protocols have already been used successfully on small mammal organs, such as rabbit kidneys.[1] Kidneys…
There's not yet evidence in favour of brain function being preserved though, even if the structure seems somewhat intact.
Anyway, many electron microscopy studies show that even in ideal laboratory conditions, cryoprotected tissue always has some amount of freeze damage to its structure, despite some areas being beautifully preserved. Humans have it even worse than the average lab rat, as there is always going to be a greater amount of post-mortem delay - during which the brain is undergoing ischaemic damage.
Cryonics is an interesting area of research, but the claims of being able to preserve memory and personality are really quite unfounded at this point.
Re: We Need More Autopsies, to Help Save the Living
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Using a religious objection for this seems appropriate. The belief that you can live forever by if your body is frozen after death is more or less the same as the belief that you can live forever if your body is intact and you worshipped the right deity.
I don't want to stray too far from the original topic, but your equivocation is unwarranted. Unlike religions, cryonics actually has evidence behind it. Modern cryoprotectants allow for accurate preservation of brain nanostructure. Axons and even synaptic vesicles are kept intact. In fact, Alcor's cryopreservation protocols have already been used successfully on small mammal organs, such as rabbit kidneys.[1] Kidneys…
May I respectfully suggest that if the capability to revive a cryonically preserved human does not currently exist, then current proponents of the practice are placing their faith in the possibility that the capability will exist in the future?
Not a religion in the traditional sense, but as humanity currently lacks the ability to reproduce the intended result, the practice relies highly on belief.
Regardless, if claiming a religious exemption from autopsy allows one to "hack" the legal system to achieve ones goal ... why not do it? I have a hard time finding a possible victim in such a circumstance.